Karen Bowers

About the artist

Karen grew up in Warwickshire and Gloucestershire where, as a child, she had a lot of freedom to roam the countryside. This is where her attachment to the natural world developed. She studied Fine Art at Exeter College of Art in the late eighties, and then spent the following years in London, designing for companies such as John Lewis, Designers Guild and Camden Graphics. Before her time at Exeter, Karen studied a Foundation in Art and Design at Cheltenham Art College in the 1980’s. She returned there to complete an MA in Fine Art in 2012. She is married with two sons and lives in Gloucestershire.

Karen’s work expresses her affection for the nature and landscape around where she lives. Her paintings derive from real places and are portraits, intimate and studied. She attempts to capture in her work the spirit of the place; what is moving and powerful about nature, its changing patterns and the details that can often be passed by.

For Karen, the act of painting and the exploration and possibilities with the paint, are as important as the subject. She often paints from life in watercolour. These studies can be used to inform her larger scale oil paintings that are made in her studio. Georgia O’Keeffe and Paul Nash are important influences because of their connections with their environment, and their expressions of ‘sense of place’.

‘The ordinary everyday landscape reflects deeply who we are, and is a store house of private and collective memories.’ Ken Taylor , Professor of Landscape Architecture